Over the last few years, the increase of society stratification and inequality of income that has favoured significant shifts in household dietary patterns and a growing demand for products of animal origin, particularly meat and milk can be observed. On the consumption side, meat plays an important role in improving the nutritional status of low-income households by addressing micro and macro nutrient deficiencies. In this context, this paper investigates beef consumption trends and aims to corroborate theoretical expectations with empirical findings. The aim of the research was to characterize main tendencies of beef consumption and to find out factors affecting beef consumption in Latvia. In order to achieve the set aim, the following research objectives were defined: 1) to characterize household expenditure for purchasing beef; 2) to describe overall beef consumption in Latvia; 3) to investigate beef consumption in households with different income level. The study was based on annual statistical data, statistical bulletins covering results of the Household Budget Survey from 2002 to 2007, scientific publications and special literature. To carry out the research, adequate research methods were used. The results of this study showed that beef consumption in the country has been more or less stable, although in relatively small amounts. The main factor that influences beef consumption and expenditure on beef is income level. The results also suggested that higher beef consumption is characteristic of urban households, which have higher income level than rural ones. Therefore, within increase of income level of Latvia's inhabitants, beef consumption and demand for beef could significantly increase.

The paper expounds the results of a theoretical and practical research on the significance of presence of emotional intelligence in the manager's professiogram. The research aim is to ascertain the role of emotional intelligence in the manager's professiogram in the 21st century. To foster economic development and global competiveness in Latvia, it is necessary to promote quantitative and qualitative growth of innovative enterprises. To make an innovative enterprise perform successfully, the modern management theory and practice have set forth new requirements for enterprise managers - to develop an ability to be a manager-leader themselves. The manager-leader professiogram has to include competencies forming emotional intelligence. The results of a pilot research revealed that students studying the speciality of management and business (at Latvia University of Agriculture) have a quite low self-evaluation for several competencies of their emotional intelligence; besides, an even lower evaluation is awarded by study fellows and group members. Along with studying theoretical aspects of communication, self-cognition, and self-management, the study process for new specialists of management and business has to be arranged in a way that it promotes practical development and use of EI competencies.

The paper deals with the evaluation of the impact of capital investments on the value added in Latvian dairy specialization farms on the basis of FADN data. The evaluation is carried out through analysing the current level of capital investments in Latvia and the link between capital and the net value added and its main components, based on the comparison with the EU leading milk producing countries. The analysis shows that the current level of capital investments is low in Latvia, especially in buildings and fixed equipment. Insufficient capital investments result in high intermediate costs, lower labour productivity due to large labour contribution in the total output, and also in considerably lower level of the value added, especially per AWU in Latvia.

The research of the draining surface water from drained areas has become relevant with an increase of drainage system areas. In order to maintain sufficient drainage efficiency by the draining surface water from the drained fields the density of open inlets for the surface water had to be increased to 5.5 u 100 haE-1. That was determined by the density decline of the open ditches. The observations of the technical condition of open inlets for the surface water in the drained fields of the country have been performed since 1986. It was established that prevalent type of the inlets is F-5 design. Such inlets amounts over 90% of all tested ones. The article discusses the condition of the inlets of such type, evaluates the selection of the installation location, conditions of surface water running to an inlet and the condition of water inlet openings. The research demonstrated some disadvantages of inlet designs, quite a few mistakes of installation and breakdowns during operation. A clear increasing tendency of water inlet openings being blocked by the ground and vegetation was established: in 1986 11.1% of water inlet openings were completely blocked, in 1996 the percentage was 20.8% and in 2007 it was 42.9%. On the basis of this it can be stated that the inlets with halfway blocked openings will stop functioning soon as well if the maintenance work is not carried out in good time and an appropriate way.

The article analyses the seasonal nitrogen variation in drainage water, when the plants in the field crop rotation are fertilized with slurry during different seasons. The investigations were carried out in 2001-2003 in Juodkiškis experimental site of the Lithuanian Water Management Institute. The investigations established that the largest amounts of nitrogen are leached out in spring and in winter. In the autumn fertilized variant 38.8% more of this element was leached out in winter and spring compared with the variant fertilized in spring. During autumn nitrogen leaching was also 21% higher from the variant fertilized in autumn. It was established that the fertilization rate and dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) supply in soil have influence on the concentrations of this element. During the cold season nitrogen concentrations in drainage water, when plants had been fertilized with slurry in spring, were more affected by the supply of dissolved inorganic nitrogen in soil more compared with the rate of fertilization; and if fertilization had been performed in autumn - the concentrations were more affected by the fertilization rate. In warm season both the fertilization rate and the supply of dissolved inorganic nitrogen in soil had similar influence on the concentrations of nitrogen in the drainage water in both treatments. Meteorological conditions affect nitrogen leaching a lot. During the cold season a greater amount of nitrogen is leached out when the air temperature is higher and during the warm season - when more precipitation falls.

The traditional way of dealing with manure - storage, transportation, spreading in the fields - is currently applied very successfully, but is economically very expensive. People complain about very unpleasant smells, which are caused by gasses (indole, merkaptanas, hydrogen sulphide, ammonia) being released from the manure. Scientists are searching for other ways of handling manure which try to convert it to less harmful substances, reduce its odour and at the same time make it thicker by extracting its water content. The aim of our work was to evaluate the composition of slurry after processing it mechanically, and to test the effectiveness of the application of new coagulants and flocculants on its clarification. Fresh liquid manure from 'Sajas' pig complex(Kelme district) and the liquid manure treated in biogas reactors from Lekėčiai pig complex (Šakiai district) was used for research (2006-2008). Anionic coagulants such as aluminium chloride (Al2Cl), ferrous chloride (Fe2Cl) and pollycrilamide cationic flocculant 'Magnofloc 1011' were applied to clarify manure. 40-44% of organic pollutants can be removed from the aerated sewage under constant processing by coagulants and flocculants. The best result in pollutant removal from sewage is achieved when it is processed with 1.5 kg mE-3 norm of aluminium saline (AlCl) and 3.0 g mE-3 norm of flocculant 'Magnofloc 1011'.

The main objective of this study is to demonstrate the use of artificial neural network (AN) modelling tool to predict the risk of phosphorus (P) loss from the fields to nearest water body. The attention is drawn to AN as an alternative approach to the P index calculation for prediction of the P losses. The specific tasks of this study were to determine risk classes of P loss by linking together source and transport factors that accelerate P losses and to evaluate AN model performance for predicting risk classes via nutrient transport. AN was trained with a Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, and Scaled Conjugate Gradient algorithm was used to estimate the possible risk of P losses from agricultural land. Two small agricultural watersheds in Auce and Bauska were chosen to determine field parameters, and expert's evaluation was used for description of the risk classes' of P loss. Finally these values were used as inputs for the neural network model. The model was trained and validated by assessing its predictive performance on a testing set of data excluded from the training set. The research results highlight the capabilities of AN to predict risk for a particular field and suggest that future research on application of other algorithms is required.

The aim of the study is to analyse society's attitude towards globalization, increased immigration and multicultural dialogue emphasizing the importance of multicultural education. The investigation is based on the EU Comenius school partnership project 'Richness in Diversity' (No.: 07-LVA 01-CO 06-00167-2) where five EU countries (Latvia, Slovakia, Portugal, the Netherlands and Ireland) are involved. During investigation, a qualitative research has been done. The EU Comenius school partnership project 'Richness in Diversity' coordinators (teachers experts) were interviewed to discover their own experience and attitude towards globalization, migration, intercultural dialogue as well as their observations of their students' (aged 12-15) attitude and knowledge at the beginning of the project and dynamics - how changes their attitude when they have a possibility to visit a particular country and meet its inhabitants. The results show a positive progress of the teachers' and students' knowledge about the EU Comenius school partnership project 'Richness in Diversity' involved countries. During the project, mobilities students live in host families which give them an excellent opportunity to get introduced with the particular EU country's family, their everyday life, traditions and habits. It helps them better understand people from different cultures and learn to appreciate the culture diversity.

Two studies were conducted: the first study evaluated the production potential of indigenous (Tswana) chickens under an extensive free-range management system in the Gaborone agricultural region of Botswanal; and the second study was a survey of 25 randomly selected, commercial small-scale broiler farms in the Southern region of Botswana. Data were obtained using a structured questionnaire, interviews and direct observations of the birds and their management in the two systems. Study 1 involved 85 farmers. Ten different common supplementary feeds fed to the free-range chickens together with soil samples from where the chickens roost were collected. The feeds were: sorghum grain (Sorghum bicolor), maize grain (Zea mays), jugo bean, also known as bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea), tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius), millet grain (Pennisetum glaucum), melon seeds (Colocynthis citrullus [Citrullus lanatus]), Tswana water melon fruit (whole), sorghum milo, maize bran and sorghum beer residue (moroko). Mean adult body weight of the birds (n=713) was 2.2 and 2.0 kg for cocks and hens respectively. Average egg weight (n=188) was 48 g with an annual production of 34 eggs laid in 2 to 3 clutches. Production varied little among flocks. Sexual maturity was attained at about 6 months for females. The crude protein content of the feeds (as-fed basis) given as supplements was: maize grain 9.8%, millet 6.5%, sorghum 11.1%, tepary bean 18.5% and jugo bean 15.8%. All the feeds had a low level of calcium, for example 0.22% for melon seeds. The farmers kept the chickens for home consumption and occasional sales. In study 2, all the farmers practiced intensive housing on deep litter. The number and size of the poultry houses ranged from one to eight, with floor area of less than 100m2 to 1000m2. Numbers of chickens in each batch ranged from less than 1000 to 10000 with about 4 batches in a year. The broiler strains were Ross hybrid, Indian River and Cobb with 56% of the farmers keeping Ross hybrid. Various heating methods were used for brooding with more than 40% using gas as a source of heat. Vaccinations for either gumboro and/or Newcastle were used by 76% of the farmers. Feed was provided ad libitum in all instances.